Softball slated to start on July 14th

“We’re into something over nothing”

by Than Acuff

If we just stop testing people, then we won’t have any cases of COVID.

Good call.

I ignored the variety of skin issues growing on my body and am now in the second round of highly toxic chemo cream application on my face, causing it to fall off, have had a number of procedures to remove various stages of skin cancer the past 10 years and have a colonoscopy this Friday.

Ignorance truly is bliss, until your face falls off and you have a camera up your ass.

Can we just get some semblance of normalcy these days?

Softball has always offered some semblance of normalcy in our community every summer since back in the day, like way back in the day. Now, it sounds like we might, just might, get to play some softball this summer. Ah, that sweet relief of softball three evenings of the week.

During the past two months, town of Crested Butte recreation supervisor Joey Carpenter has been diligently working on a plan A, plan B and perhaps even a plan C, depending on when and what he hears from the county and state.

Well, as of Monday, things appear to be in order as the state has granted permission for outdoor gatherings of up to 175 people, with some caveats.

“I still don’t know details of this new 175 thing, it’s a little unclear,” says Carpenter. “We’re saying there’s a chance—no guarantees.”

Nevertheless, Carpenter will start getting the ball rolling on Plan A. It will be a six-weeks–long season that will include both the Tuesday/Thursday league and the Wednesday league.

As a result, Carpenter is taking registrations from teams to get everyone signed up and will hold off on charging money until things are a go for sure, with the season slated to start Tuesday, July 14. Based on casual conversations Carpenter has had regarding the interest in softball, he expects both leagues to be fairly robust despite the late start and shortened season.

“I’m nearly certain we will have eight teams for the Tuesday/Thursday league and five or six for the Wednesday league,” says Carpenter.

But it’s going to take a village to put on a softball season. While the Parks and Recreation crew can keep the grass cut, other duties will fall into the hands of the players themselves.

“We’re going to need a lot of volunteers from the teams because we don’t have the staff to do things like striping the fields,” says Carpenter.

Additional responsibility will fall on the players to follow COVID protocols. While Carpenter has yet to decide what to do about keeping the equipment as COVID-free as possible, whatever is decided will have to be followed diligently by the players and teams. For example, he is considering the idea of having balls specific to each team’s use. That is, when the Talk of the Town is in the field, their game balls will be used and then when the Psycho Rocks take the field, they switch to the Psycho Rocks game balls.

“I’m still trying to figure things like that out but rules will need to be followed and, in an ideal world, there will be no cross-contact,” says Carpenter. “We’re into something over nothing.”

Once Carpenter has teams registered, he will hold a captains’ meeting to lay out the COVID protocols in place and gauge the reality of whether teams can follow through with those protocols.

“I want to give people an opportunity to play softball, but I don’t want to be responsible for an outbreak in Crested Butte,” says Carpenter.